So I went into my pinterest and found this writing prompt: “Your username decides your profession. How is your first day at work?” This is where I went. No fandom, just distopian future

“If they talk to you, you zap them.” He snapped his gum in my ear as I peered into the cage.

“Zap them?” I straightened and felt my eyes go wide.

“Zap them. With the zapper? Are you kidding me? Didn’t you go through orientation?” He rolled his eyes then moved toward the comfy gingham patterned chair against the far wall.

He motioned to the table next to the chair, suggesting that I should pick up the remote. There was a large blue button marked STUN. Underneath that and slightly to the left was a red button marked PANIC . To the right was a solid filled space where there was once a button, the word below read OPEN

“They…” I felt panic rise, bile too. “They said we are short-handed and they will fit me in next week some time.” I wanted to drop the remote and run.

“Okay, listen.” He spoke as though he might think I was the most inept person he’d encountered to date. “If any of them talk to you, you hit the blue button. They can talk to each other.” He shrugged, then pulled ear phones out of his own pocket. “Bring a player tomorrow, and a book. If the idea of zapping them bothers you, you won’t know they are talking to you if you can’t hear them. If the kitchen comes by to feed them, you take off your headphones, and pay attention so they don’t talk to the kitchen staff either.”

“If?”

“They are shorthanded too.”

I pointed to the lack of an OPEN button, knowing what it took to get put in a K.A.I.G.E.

“You’re at max capacity. 175 internees. You won’t need it.”

”I used to have your job.” A thin voice came out of the enclosure.

My pimple-faced gum-snapping supervisor reached out and pushed the blue button in my hand. All 175 Internees gasped and then fell to the floor as one.